Does publicness matter in job satisfaction? A three-dimensional analysis of publicness

ABSTRACT

Public management scholars have argued that public and private organizations are essentially different and such differences will generate different outcomes in various aspects, such as performance and work-related attitudes. Empirical evidence, however, is not consistent. We investigate how the characteristics of public organizations that distinguish them from private counterparts are associated with work attitudes of employees. We measured three dimensions of publicness―ownership, funding, and control―and tested the association of each dimension of publicness with job satisfaction of managers. Data were collected from a sample of 231 middle-level managers from 129 universities in Korea, being analyzed through OLS regressions and HLM methods. The results show that three dimensions of publicness are independently linked to job satisfaction of managers. Public ownership and the level of control were negatively associated with job satisfaction of managers, but financial dependence on public sources was not significantly related to it.

KEYWORDS:

• Publicness
• Job satisfaction

Highlights

• We investigated the dynamic relationships between three dimensions of publicness and job satisfaction of employees, which will draw a more comprehensive picture of publicness and its consequences than did previous research.

• The public ownership is limited in reinforcing the link between performance and rewards. Moreover, a more rigid reward and recognition system controlled by the laws and political controls may frustrate managers when they seek to motivate employees under their command as well as themselves.

• Stricter restrictions on mangers’ decision-making and work procedures and rules do not only reinforce bureaucratic formality, which will be burdensome on managers who are responsible for complying with legal requirements, following procedures, and simultaneously managing their organization effectively, but also reduce managers’ work autonomy and increase the probability of experiencing burnout in their jobs.

Acknowledgments

The data collection was supported by the Center for Organizational Diagnosis and Evaluation, SNU.

Notes

¹ Studies which have analyzed non-governmental organizations also attempted to measure control. D’Aunno and Vaughn (1992) have developed a measure of control, using the responses to the questions inquiring of the extent to which methadone dose was adopted to comply with governmental regulation, agreements with other units or social pressures. Heinrich and Fournier (2004) employed two variables, which were used to approximate to the extent of external influences. One is regarding whether an organization is only a component of the larger service process, while the other, whether it has been licensed or accredited. However, the measures adopted in these studies are limited in being used in other research settings where organizations perform different functions. In addition, there could be some doubts whether accreditation by non-governmental agencies could be a reliable indicator of control or regulation publicness because it is difficult to be seen as constraints by political authorities.

³ About NASP, See Rainey et al. (1995) and Pandey and Wright (2006).

⁴ From the population, 68 institutions were then excluded because they were either “on-line education only” institutions or those with sole area of education, which made them very peculiar as compared to other “general” universities.

⁵ It means they are not academicians who are temporarily responsible for college management.

⁶ The actual execution of the survey was outsourced to a professional research company located in Seoul. Because of missing data, the actual number of cases for each regression analysis varies a little.

⁷ The Daehakalimi (www.academyinfo.go.kr) is operated by the Ministry of Education in the Korean government.

⁸ Responses from both HR and financial managers from each university were averaged to create this measure to reduce measurement error because this is a perceptual measure of organizational characteristics based on self-reports.

² The VIF metrics of the dimensions were well below the cut-off point of 10.